{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/umpires-referees-and-other-sports-officials/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Umpires, Referees, and Other Sports Officials",
    "soc_code": "27-2023",
    "category": "Media",
    "us_employment": 15780,
    "median_annual_wage": 40710
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 54,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 11,
    "embodiment": 17,
    "liability_shield": 4,
    "trust_premium": 8,
    "judgment_accountability": 14
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Ball-tracking and boundary calls — the tasks sensors have already taken in ATP tennis and Triple-A baseball — are a real slice of the job, but the rest of a Friday night game is spotting a horse-collar tackle, deciding whether contact was incidental, restarting play, and ejecting a coach, which is why this lands at 11 rather than 5.",
    "embodiment": "You are on the field for the whole contest, in whatever weather the district scheduled, backpedaling to keep the play in front of you, taking foul balls off the mask, and physically separating players — that is uncontrolled-environment work, and 17 rather than 20 only because the venue is a marked, bounded playing surface with known dimensions.",
    "liability_shield": "State association registration and a rules-test certification get you assigned to games, but nothing about it is a practice licence: no statute makes you personally liable for a blown call, and a mis-called ejection ends in an association review or a non-renewal, not a suit against you.",
    "trust_premium": "Assigners rehire officials they know will show up and hold a game together, and varsity crews build reputations that get them playoff assignments — but the teams do not choose you, the fans do not want a relationship with you, and an unfamiliar official in the right uniform is accepted, which caps it at 8.",
    "judgment_accountability": "Intent on a flagrant foul, whether a pitcher's arm is a safety risk, whether to suspend play for lightning or a head injury, and whether a coach's conduct has crossed into ejection are calls made in seconds with no replay, no consultation, and consequences for a player's health and a team's season — the rulebook frames them but does not decide them."
  },
  "rationale": "The modal official works youth, high school, and rec leagues part-time — running the field, positioning for sightlines, enforcing rules in real time, and managing angry coaches and parents, none of which a camera rig does. But the single most visible task, judging ball position and boundary calls, is already automated where money exists: Hawk-Eye retired professional tennis line judges, and automated ball-strike systems are entering baseball. Sensors erode the calling function from the top of the sport downward; crowd control, safety decisions, foul intent, and game management stay human because someone physically present must own the call.",
  "outlook": "By the mid-2030s, sensor systems will handle most objective calls at professional and top collegiate levels, while human officials remain essential everywhere below that for game control, safety, and enforcing conduct — pay stays modest and the work stays largely part-time.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift is genuinely two-tier: if ball/strike, line, and offside calls are fully sensor-handled (ABS in MLB, Hawk-Eye in tennis/soccer semi-automated offside), the residual job is foul intent, unsportsmanlike conduct, advantage rulings, and game management — none of which have a sensor analogue. Watch for high school associations adopting cheap phone-based line tech while retaining a human for everything else.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "State youth-sports concussion statutes (all 50 states have Lystedt-style laws) being amended to name the game official — not just the coach or trainer — as the person who must remove a player from play and document it, with the official's certification revocable. Some state associations already require officials to stop play for suspected head injury; making it a statutory duty attached to a registered credential is the specific step.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 5
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "State athletic association rules requiring a registered, background-checked official of record to sign the game report for any contest whose result affects postseason eligibility or state records — making the human signature the thing that validates the result, regardless of who made the calls.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Formal assignment of ejection, forfeit, and suspend-the-contest authority to the on-site official under weather/lightning and crowd-violence protocols (NFHS lightning policy already does this in most states), with the association explicitly barring remote or automated override.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Narrow route only: leagues marketing 'human-judged' divisions is not a real market. The plausible version is parent/athlete pressure after a high-profile automated-call failure leading a state association to keep human final say on subjective calls as a stated policy — a trust premium held by the institution, not paid by the buyer per game.",
        "plausibility": "unlikely",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Pay and headcount are the binding constraint, not capability: this is a part-time, per-game market where the sensor cost curve determines adoption, and the modal official is already unreplaced at youth level for economic reasons. Liability and accountability gains would raise the score without raising the wage."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 18610,
        "wage": 26800
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 19090,
        "wage": 27020
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 20120,
        "wage": 28550
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 16590,
        "wage": 28940
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 9620,
        "wage": 35860
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 12720,
        "wage": 36010
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 14840,
        "wage": 35820
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 15080,
        "wage": 38820
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 15780,
        "wage": 40710
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": -15.2,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}